“I N T E R V I E W
Dirk Geyer
Head of Safety and
Security, AVL Software
and Functions
focus: Will taking responsibilities away from the driver and
automating it make vehicles safer?
Geyer: Increased operational safety is definitely the most impor-tant
target of automated cars. All-seeing sensors and reliably
performant algorithms will ultimately save lives. Tiredness and
dangerous mistakes must be avoided.
focus: What is the single biggest challenge to safety of the
automated vehicle?
Griessnig: This is without any doubt the combination of infi-nite
number of possible environmental scenarios and the need
to prove safe behaviour in practically all of them.
focus: How can we best prepare for the unknowns of auto-mated
mobility?
Geyer: We have to prepare methods and solutions that are
capable of turning unknowns to knowns by fast and safe learn-ing.
A key for this is the implementation of connected and
cooperative automation.
reassurance under both known and
unknown scenarios.
Given the complexity of both de-veloping
the current and next gen-erations
of vehicle concepts, and
the vehicles themselves, it’s clear
that Functional Safety, Safety of the
Intended Functionality (SOTIF),
and Cybersecurity cannot be an af-terthought.
Instead, it must be an
integral part of the development
process, from vehicle and system
level right down to the individual
component, and from the concept
phase throughout the complete ve-hicle
lifecycle.
A HOLISTIC, COMPREHENSIVE
APPROACH
At AVL, our approach is holistic
and comprehensive, considering the
entire vehicle in everything we do.
As the industry and its drivers have
evolved, we’ve made it our job to
evolve alongside them, and to re-search
and develop new technolo-gies
before they reach widespread
acceptance across the market.
This allows us to anticipate the
impact of new technologies. In the
case of SOTIF and cybersecuri-ty
in relation to AD, ADAS and
connected systems, we have many
years of experience developing the
tools and processes to help our cus-tomers
comprehensively tackle the
issues and challenges that they pres-ent.
Combined with the close in-dustry
relationships that enable us
to fully understand our customers'
exact needs and difficulties, we are
able to bring our unique expertise
to bear on these issues.
This includes the tools, such as sys-tem
design, simulation, and the rel-evant
test environments, to support
development, verification and vali-dation
of the vehicle and its systems.
And we can also provide the engi-neering
support to either enable our
customers to tackle these challenges
themselves or take over that func-tion
entirely on their behalf.
Gerhard Griessnig
Corporate Functional Safety
and Cybersecurity Coordi-nator,
AVL List GmbH
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